Nike's The Opening, where 162 of the top high school football players in the country will get together at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., gets underway Monday.

Louisiana has nine players participating in the event, up one from last year's total.

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune will take a brief look at each of the participants between now and the start of the competition.

ESPNU will broadcast The Opening Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. starting with the SPARQ National Championship on Tuesday. Former Karr athlete and Texas A&M freshman Devante 'Speedy' Noil won the SPARQ title last season.

Destrehan athlete Kirk Merritt

Opening Team: Vapor Carbon

Merritt has as good as chance as any to follow in Noil's footsteps and give Louisiana back-to-back SPARQ National Champions.

The 5-foot-11, 206-pound Merritt posted a 138.84 SPARQ score in March after running a 4.60 40-yard dash, a 4.10 20-yard shuttle, leaping 45.8 inches and tossing the powerball 43 feet. He topped the national leaderboard for two months until Tyler Phillips of North Little Rock (Ark.) scored a 141.36 in early May.

Merritt's score still ranks as the second best score nationwide and figures to be in the mix when SPARQ National Championship airs on ESPNU Tuesday.

All of the Opening athletes will go through SPARQ testing once again on Tuesday morning with the top 10 doing it one more time for the chance to be the national champion Tuesday night.

"That's one of my main goals," Merritt said. "I just want to compete and go against the best."

Merritt is being recruited as both a running back and a wide receiver by both schools but will have the chance to work out at receiver at The Opening.

Once he gets back, Merritt will start focusing on his recruitment once again. Merritt said he has taken unofficial visits to LSU, Texas A&M, Auburn and Alabama so far but has not selected which schools he will take official visits to just yet.